Spring at the Mountain Room: Open to the Season
山房春事二首（其一）
Shānfáng chūn shì èr shǒu · qí yī
Bees, butterflies, willow branches, and falling blossoms cross into Cen Shen’s room on a warm spring day.
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About the text and pronunciation
The simplified view changes character forms, not the edition. Notes and sources retain the cited text.
The Chinese source is shown in traditional characters by default, with a simplified view available. Pinyin is modern standard Mandarin, a reading aid, not Tang or Song pronunciation.
Word by word, in the order of the line. A gloss is a crib. It is not the translation.
Word meanings — Line 1
- 風 fēng wind
- 恬 tián gentle
- 日 rì sun
- 暖 nuǎn warm
- 蕩 dàng spreads
- 春 chūn spring
- 光 guāng light
Word meanings — Line 2
- 戲 xì playing
- 蝶 dié butterflies
- 遊 yóu wandering
- 蜂 fēng bees
- 亂 luàn freely
- 入 rù enter
- 房 fáng room
Word meanings — Line 3
- 數 shù several
- 枝 zhī branches
- 門 mén door
- 柳 liǔ willow
- 低 dī low
- 衣桁 yī héng clothes rack
Word meanings — Line 4
- 一 yí one
- 片 piàn piece
- 山 shān mountain
- 花 huā flower
- 落 luò falls
- 筆牀 bǐ chuáng brush stand
English translation by PoemWell.
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Original
風恬日暖蕩春光，
戲蝶遊蜂亂入房。
數枝門柳低衣桁，
一片山花落筆牀。
Translation
The wind is gentle, the sun warm, spring light spreading;
playing butterflies and wandering bees tumble into the room.
Several willow branches droop by the clothes rack at the door;
a mountain blossom falls onto the brush stand.
Try it from memory
After reading, recall the underlined word or phrase in each line. Say its meaning before opening the answer. These prompts use the text edition printed above.
-
Line 1 · What does the marked word mean?
風恬日暖蕩春光，
Pronunciation hint
nuǎn
Reveal meaning and translation
暖 — warm
The wind is gentle, the sun warm, spring light spreading;
-
Line 3 · What does the marked word mean?
數枝門柳低衣桁，
Pronunciation hint
yī héng
Reveal meaning and translation
衣桁 — clothes rack
Several willow branches droop by the clothes rack at the door;
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Line 4 · What does the marked word mean?
一片山花落筆牀。
Pronunciation hint
bǐ chuáng
Reveal meaning and translation
筆牀 — brush stand
a mountain blossom falls onto the brush stand.
One more question: what changes?
Compare the opening and closing lines. What changes in the scene, the speaker’s attention, or the feeling? Choose a Chinese word as evidence, then compare your reading with the notes. More than one answer may be reasonable.
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Line-by-line notes
Lines 1–2: the season crosses a threshold
恬 gives the wind calm, and 日暖 gives warmth. 蕩 spreads the spring light, leaving space for 戲蝶 and 遊蜂 to move unpredictably. 亂入 is their lively entry into the room. “Tumble” in English expresses the unsystematic motion of the two kinds of insects.
Lines 3–4: how the room becomes visible
數枝 and 一片 narrow the scale from several branches to a single fallen piece of blossom. 低 puts willow near the 衣桁, a clothes rack, and 落 gives the flower a landing on the 筆牀, a rest for writing brushes. These are domestic objects, so the poet can let spring enter ordinary indoor work without putting a person onstage.
Form and tone
This seven-character jueju rhymes 光, 房, and 牀. The last pair balances branches with a fallen blossom and a clothes rack with a brush stand. Modern pinyin reads 桁 héng in this object-name. No historical tone grid is supplied.
Historical context
Cen Shen writes nature at close range here, far from the vast desert of In the Stony Desert. Read the companion spring poem, where trees flower without knowing their human world has emptied. The shared heading contains a strikingly different relation between spring and people.
Sources
《全唐詩》, juan 201, Cen Shen; checked against the Wikisource transcription and its recorded variants. Punctuation is editorial.
English translation, gloss, and notes by PoemWell. The translation is original to this site.
The Chinese source is shown in traditional characters by default, with a simplified view available. Pinyin is modern standard Mandarin, a reading aid, not Tang or Song pronunciation.
Updated .
Cite this reading
Cen Shen. “Spring at the Mountain Room: Open to the Season” (山房春事二首（其一）). PoemWell. English translation by PoemWell. Updated .
https://poemwell.org/poems/spring-at-the-mountain-room-one
Credit the poet for the Chinese original and PoemWell for this translation and commentary. Use the permanent page link above; source editions are listed separately.